The 25-year-old was left with feeling or mobility in her body below her breastbone, although with only partial paralysis in her hands and arms she can manoeuvre a wheelchair, following the accident in August 2006 following a diving accident at a friend's swimming pool.

Grimes claimed that her spinal injrueis had been made worse by the treatment she received at Frimley Park Hospital in Farnham, which included thinking she was a teenage drunk and had been taking drugs.

Under the conditions of the settlement, Grimes is not allowed to publicly reveal the sum of the figure.

"But let's just say I will be provided for throughout my life in terms of equipment, a carer and so on," she told today's edition of the Mail on Sunday.

"Maybe I could have got more if I'd taken them to court, but I'm not greedy and I wanted to move on with my life.

"I'm 85 per cent paralysed and that's how I'm going to remain for the rest of my life."

It was while recovering at Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore that Grimes became interested in wheelchair rugby.


"I went to watch some players training in the gym and knew this was something I wanted to do," she told the Mail on Sunday.

'It's a full-on contact sport.

"It's fast, furious and loud.

"That would have put off a lot of people.

"Not me.

"I liked the idea I'd be playing with people all of whom had some form of disability in all four limbs just like me."

Grimes began training with the British team in 2011 and a year later represented them at the Paralympics in London. 

She was one of only two women, the other being Belgium's Bieke Ketelbuters, that competed in wheelchair rugby at London 2012.

"I'll never forget the phone call telling me I was in the team for London 2012," said Grimes.

"I was overwhelmed.

"Now my big ambition is to be picked for the team going to Rio for the 2016 Paralympics."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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